http://losslessaudiochecker.com/ (http://losslessaudiochecker.com/)
I just discovered this cross-platform tool, and since there wasn't a thread about I thought I'd start one.
Current version (2.0.4) "analyzes lossless audio tracks and detects upscaling, upsampling and transcoding (only for AAC in this early version)."
The authors have also published a AES paper which is freely available via their site.
What should make a tool like that complete is the ability to detect watermarks.
Common practise seems to be adding these into downloads you buy in lossless formats having good faith in its losslessnes.
Using MusicBee I converted a couple of FLACs to WAV
All are in redbook format.
The Checker flagged them all (5) as upsampled.
I'm afraid this tools generates false positives as I'm sure the tracks are from CDs ripped with CDparanoia.
Same goes for the opposite:
I converted some 320 kbps MP3s to FLAC and applied lossyFLAC --high.
All files were reported as "clean"...
I converted some 320 kbps MP3s to FLAC and applied lossyFLAC --high.
All files were reported as "clean"...
It doesn't work yet.
transcoding (only for AAC in this early version)
I´ve made my own testing, and this software worked flawlessly with flac files transcoded from qaac, even at bitrates as high as 512 kbps. Nevertheless, ANY Nero aac, even as low as 80 kbps will generate flac files that circumvent the detection, and come out as "CLEAN" (see the provided files). It´s far from perfect, but I guess you could use it to detect any transcoding from iTunes, which tend to be prevalent on the web and streaming services. Obviously, mp3-s pass the test with flying colours, but for this purpose there are other options, as well. My point is, just like the antivirus and malware protection programs, one should use various to get a closer-to-reality diagnosis, but even so, nothing´s guaranteed.